With Bernie on top, it's the mourning after for mainstream Democrats

Party gnashers

Democrats who fear Bernie Sanders as their standard-bearer will drive the party off a cliff are going through the classic stages of grief since his resounding victory in the Nevada caucus, and they've moved past denial. There's no disputing that Sanders is not only the front-runner but now the favorite for the nomination.

Anger? Pete Buttigieg gave voice to it after the Nevada results Saturday night. He branded Sanders as the leader of an “inflexible ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats.” He charged the democratic socialist candidate "would go beyond reform and reorder the economy in ways most Democrats — not to mention most Americans — don’t support.”

Bargaining? Like a number of center-left Democrats, Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and senior staffer in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that Sanders was "stoppable," but moderate Democrats would "have to coalesce under one person." The problem with that: There's just no sign of an imminent stand-down by Buttigieg or Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar or Tom Steyer and certainly not Mike Bloomberg. Elizabeth Warren is hanging in, too, as the progressive-goals alternative "who can get them done."

Depression? At the very least, there's angst. The Washington Post reports that many Democratic House and Senate candidates are recalibrating messaging to include praise of capitalism and distance themselves from the national party. “I can tell you that there are a lot of down-ballot jitters based on my conversations with my former colleagues,” said former Rep. Steve Israel of Huntington, who led the Democrats' congressional election efforts from 2011 to 2015.

As for acceptance, mainstream Democrats aren't there yet, but the moment of truth may be approaching in little more than a week, on Super Tuesday, March 3, when 14 states including Texas will choose more than one-third of the Democratic convention delegates.

Sanders contends Democrats should fear not where he would lead them. "In Nevada we have just brought together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition which is not only going to win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country,” he said in his victory speech Saturday night.

In Houston on Sunday, Sanders adopted the tone of a candidate who has already secured the nomination before thousands of cheering supporters, The Associated Press reported. He predicted he could take Texas, long a red state, in November. If working-class, black and Hispanic Texans “come out to vote, we’re going to win," Sanders said.

Biden's new hurdle: the other billionaire

Biden, the once-upon-a-time front-runner, has been counting on South Carolina and black Democrats, who comprise a majority of the party's voters there, for a big bounce-back win. But Steyer has spent big from his personal fortune and taken a bite out of Biden's support.

“I think a lot’s happening in terms of the amount of money being spent by billionaires to try to cut into the African American vote,” Biden said on CBS’ "Face the Nation." He once led in the state by 28 points.

According to a new CBS News Battleground Tracker poll, Biden was the first choice of 28% of South Carolina Democrats, followed by Sanders at 23%; Steyer, 18%; Warren, 12%; Buttigieg, 10%; and Klobuchar, 4%. Steyer's showing was good enough to get him into the next debate on Tuesday. Bloomberg is not on the ballot for the state's primary on Saturday.

Asked if he could stop Sanders, Biden replied: "I don't know. It's not about who I stop. It's about why I'm running." For more, see Newsday's story by Scott Eidler.

Janison: Playing Trump like fiddle

It's no mystery that flattery will get you a long way with Trump. Still, the wife of disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich could teach a master class in playing the president into commuting his sentence for corruption, as Newsday's Dan Janison writes.

The daughter of a Chicago machine pol, Patti Mell went on Fox and talked about how she could relate to the terrible things Trump's foes put him through. She spun a dark fantasy that former FBI Director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller were behind her husband's prosecution.

Actually, it was U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey — long close to Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani — who chose to tap Blagojevich's phones. But never let the facts bog down a good pitch.

And so Trump was won over to the former Democratic pol's cause, lopping six years off Blagojevich's 14-year sentence in a move that appalled Illinois Republicans and Democrats alike.

Nothing to see there?

Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, dismissed reports that intelligence officials warned lawmakers that Russia again is looking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election with the aim of boosting Trump, reports Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez.

“We just haven't seen that intelligence. If it's out there, I haven't seen it,” O'Brien said during a pair of Sunday talk show appearances. Pressed by ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos on whether he had a responsibility to find out what was told to the House Intelligence Committee, O’Brien reiterated: “I haven’t seen the intel, and I haven't seen that analysis."

Some national security officials told CNN a top election security official appeared to have overstated the findings to the House panel. Yes, there is Russian interference, and yes, the Russians consider Trump someone they can work with, but the dots don't connect to mean they are trying to reelect him, those officials said.

But O'Brien wasn't shy about leaping on reports that Russia is seeking to help Sanders in the Democratic primaries. "That's no surprise. He honeymooned in Moscow," O'Brien said, echoing a line Trump used at a campaign rally on Friday.

Revisiting Bloomberg-Trump buddy act

On more than one occasion as New York City mayor, Bloomberg exchanged praise with fellow businessman Trump. Bloomberg's Democratic rivals are now using that against him, as is Trump, writes Newsday's Figueroa.

In 2011, Bloomberg called Trump a “New York icon” during a Fox News interview. Bloomberg twice appeared on Trump's "The Apprentice." After granting Trump a contract to run a Bronx golf course on public land, Bloomberg said, “If there is anybody who has changed this city, it is Donald Trump.” Trump called Bloomberg “a great mayor,” adding “this guy is fantastic.”

Bloomberg's campaign has tried to explain away the video clips, saying the mayor was merely building a working relationship with one of the city’s biggest developers. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), a Trump ally who has ties to both men, said, “There was never any major animosity between the two, but nothing very warm about their relationship either.”

Poll: Warren won last debate

There's little sign it's helping her yet on the balloting front, but for what it's worth, a CBS News poll finds that Warren impressed more likely Democratic voters than anyone else did in last week's debate.

Warren scored with 50% of voters after a performance that included her skewering of Bloomberg's record of sexist remarks and secret harassment settlements. Bloomberg was at the bottom, impressing only 15%.

In between were Sanders, 42%; Buttigieg, 30%; Klobuchar, 24%; and Biden, 23%.

What else is happening:

• Trump flew off to India on Sunday after boasting that millions are expected to watch his “Namaste Trump" rally at a cricket stadium in Ahmedabad Monday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The projected stadium capacity is perhaps 120,000, but that still could be his largest crowd ever, The Washington Post reported. Trump hopes the event could help him with American voters of Indian ancestry back home, who tend to trend Democratic.
• At the big gathering, Trump's walkup music was the Village People's "Macho Man." He promptly got up and butchered the names of two legendary Indian cricket players. He also mangled the pronunciation of the term for "tea seller." But the learning curve was high on this topic. Trump once told a stunned Modi, "It's not like you've got China on your border," which, of course, Modi does. 
• Since 2018, an outside network of right-wing activists that includes Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has been sending Trump hit lists of officials they say he should fire as disloyal, Axios reports. Trump's urge to purge is raising anxiety throughout the administration, according to The New York Times.
• The judge who sentenced Trump's longtime confidant Roger Stone to 40 months in prison last week rejected a defense request to disqualify herself. "The pleading appears to be nothing more than an attempt to use the Court’s docket to disseminate a statement for public consumption that has the words 'judge' and 'biased' in it," federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote Sunday.
• Twitter began suspending 70 pro-Bloomberg accounts on Friday for breaking its rules, a Twitter representative said. The accounts were posting identical messages in support of Bloomberg and ran afoul of Twitter's rules against "platform manipulation and spam," a rep for the company said.
• Sanders told CBS' "60 Minutes" that Trump wasn't wrong to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. "Meeting with people who are antagonistic is, to me, not a bad thing to do. I think, unfortunately, Trump went into that meeting unprepared," he said.
• Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who engineered the Nevada caucus' place as third on the primary calendar, says it’s time to end all caucuses, The New York Times reported. “All caucuses should be a thing of the past. They don’t work for a multitude of reasons,” Reid said.
• A 9-year-old boy sent a question to Buttigieg at a rally in Denver Saturday night: "Would you help me tell the world I'm gay, too? I want to be brave like you." The candidate welcomed Zachary Ro to the stage and told him, "I don't think you need a lot of advice for me on bravery. You seem pretty strong to me."